


Core World Blues: The Greatest Hits of the Modal Nodes

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 18:24:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6125892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Figrin D'an remembers how they got here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Core World Blues: The Greatest Hits of the Modal Nodes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Melody_Jade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melody_Jade/gifts).



> Mostly ignores EU/Legends.

You won't know my name. Nobody does, not these days.

Call it twenty-five years ago because time's a little slippy around the edges these days, but back then, in the day, everybody knew my name. Thirty years back or so, not so much. The band and I were doing gigs wherever we could find a stage and a landlord willing to give us enough credits to pay for one room for the seven of us. We played the scummiest dive bars on Coruscant. We played the Wookiee bars on Kashyyyk, and let me tell you, you do not want to miss a note on "My Sweet Cadopine" in a Wookiee bar. We took wedding gigs for the credits, and yeah, we even did more than our share of Adulthood Celebrations, crooning our best covers of "Breakdown Port" and "Core World Blues" for some kid who was finally tall enough to see over the edge of the stage.

I'm saying, we paid our dues. Later, people said we didn't. They don't know anything about running through steaming rain, wrapping our instruments in secondhand plastisteel to keep them dry, because our manager Toba wrangled us a last-minute spot to replace a droid band who'd blown a fuse.

That all changed when Toba booked us the opening act in front of Gars Towunda.

Yeah, you've heard of Gars. Yeah, it was a real shame. No, none of my group was ever into that scene with the happy dust and the booze. Well, not much. Well, not now.

We went on to warm up the audience, and I got to say, nothing can compare to a giant concert hall full of people of every shape and size and species sitting forward in their grav chairs waiting to see if you're any good. We were all so nervous walking out there. I think Sun'il just about plorked herself before she started tapping on her drum in the opening line for "Worm Case." I picked up my horn and played the first three notes, and everything fell together.

We killed that night. I don't think Gars got as much applause as we did. All right, he did. You don't have to rub it in.

That gig got us the recording contract. Toba couldn't get us in the door with Galaxy Discs, but we met Chanta Plo after the show, and she had every connection we ever wanted. We gave Toba a nice cut, and watched him out the door, and Chanta was our new manager.

Look, you know how it is. You go from starving between sets to drowning in credits. Dalan bought himself twenty landspeeders. Twenty! I kind of went overboard with my haul, I admit, but I do love the feel of Lashaa silk bedclothes when I'm meditating.

Sorry. A little too personal there.

We had it good. We had more offers for gigs than time. Chanta set us up on a tour of the galaxy, promoting us as the hot new sound in Jizz. I bought the hype, even though I guess I always knew we weren't hot and new, we were just a little quirky take on the good old stuff we'd grown up with, the soul-touching music we'd listened to since we were all little pods.

That didn't matter to the fans. Everywhere we went, we met groupies who wanted nothing more than a little Bith in their evening. Kind of hard to explain to them that wasn't going to happen, not at our ages, not even Tech who was still a kid, but the attention was nice. 

Everybody knew our names. Even the lipwipes who made crude jokes about not being able to tell us apart. They knew my name.

But you know the story. You know what went wrong. You're old enough to remember those days, too, if you don't mind my pointing it out.

Funny thing was, none of us cared much who was running the galaxy as long as we had our instruments and each other, and people to line up buying tickets. Jedi never came to the concerts, or maybe they did. Big crowds, who can say? Doesn't seem like their scene, though. We heard on the news that they went rogue, and had to be killed, and that was all politics. Never get involved with politics. Palpatine said he was going to make things better for everyone.

Yeah. Don't say you didn't believe him too. We all did, and anyone who didn't saw the wrong side of a Clone Trooper's blaster, but that all came out a lot later.

What happened first was that the concert halls got shut down. "Risk of terrorist attack," they said, but fine, we still played in private venues. We had the credits to coast for a long time, or we would have. When you have a ton of credits, it's easy to get used to spending them until there aren't any more. We still had gigs, but Chanta couldn't book us anywhere good.

People stopped liking Jizz, she said. As the Empire rose, the only thing people sang was the Moods. We changed our sound, trying to cope with the new flavor.

Yeah.

Chanta disappeared. Some of the band think the Empire took her out, but she left with a lot of our money. We couldn't hold together after that.

I hear Lond's doing well over on Spira. Covers for weddings again, but the pay is steady when you work with a wedding vendor, and you can pretend every four hours that you wish the very best for the latest twosome or threesome to knock on the vendor's door for a quickie nuptial ceremony.

I needed the credits, all right? I only did a few weeks.

We got back together four years ago, after a lot of time pairing off and a lot of solo work. Lond's cousin Lirin took her spot. We got this gig on Tatooine last year, house band at a dark little dive bar in Mos Eisley. The pay's enough to feed us and keep us housed, and I've had time to work on new music. We're getting back to our roots, pure Jizz instead of that modulated shnict, pardon my Corellian. I like the sound we're developing. It's catchy, and it makes you feel something.

We're back to calling ourselves the Modal Nodes. That was the name we used before we got big. The name's Figrin D'an, since you don't know. I used to be someone. Here's our card. Toba over there can book us for whatever you need.

Since you ask, I do remember seeing them. Some old human and a younger one. Males, I'm sure. They left with two smugglers a few hours ago. No, I don't know their names. The Wookiee sure loves "My Sweet Cadopine," though.

Thanks.


End file.
